A Refresher

Let’s lock in the ideas from this chapter:

• Coaching happens at the individual level and the whole-team level all the time. A good agile coach pays attention to where the team is in the sprint and release cycle to make whole-team and individual coaching useful, powerful, and nondisruptive.

• Coaching in the agile context = coaching + agile mentoring. We are interested in people’s whole lives as we coach them to become excellent agilists.

• Start coaching conversations with people immediately. This way, when a problem arises, you have established the coaching relationship, and you already know where the person is on the agile journey.

• A good product owner makes for a healthy agile team. Coach this person well.

• Teach someone else how to coach to strengthen your own skills and knowledge. Take on an agile coach apprentice as soon as you are able.

• Managers impact team performance. This puts them in your purview as agile coachees.

• Sponsors are a special kind of manager and require coaching so that they learn how to get more than they imagined they could from self-organized teams.